Tuesday, October 29, 2013

family dinners

I continue to be super interested in figuring out family dinner. My goal is to develop a core of simple, healthy, homemade, no-special-ingredient, tasty dinners that are liked by all of us (or at least each of us likes some part of it). Here are five dinners that I consider pretty tried and true by now.

Shown above--
:: stuffed peppers. I love these! The boys don't eat the actual peppers but will eat the filling (sort of--not Dieter so much). Funny anecdote: on the night I was making these particular peppers I cut myself on the lid of a can of tomato sauce and had to go to the hospital for stitches! Major bummer, but Ken finished the dish for me, so we still got to enjoy them when I got back.
:: chicken with cucumber-yogurt sauce. So easy and fresh tasting. We love this.
:: meatball stroganoff. So tasty! From Everyday Food.
:: spatchcocked chicken with chickpeas (here). I do this a bit differently than the recipe--the chickens are so large these days, it takes longer to cook than the recipe states. I do 20 minutes, then add the chickpeas, and do 20 more minutes. This is so tasty with cilantro and lime as the recipe suggests, but I also want to try serving it with mango chutney.
:: and finally, Moroccan chicken stew. Everyone loves this and it is so quick and easy. I buy a bag of sweet potatoes and a box of whole wheat couscous at Trader Joe's and they come out perfectly even to make this three times. After the three times (spaced a few weeks apart) I retire the recipe for awhile. I love doing it this way because I hate having ingredients left over. I find I won't use them if they are just randomly in the pantry, so I avoid that now. I love having a clean, simple pantry.

It is really easy to find organic ground beef and organic chicken at Trader Joe's so that is what I do. We are fairly meat-centric these days.

It is starting to feel fallish around here and I'm getting excited about
making cool weather fare, chilis, stews, soups, and casseroles. Yay!

9 comments:

All look delicious! I have been making heavy use of my slow cooker recently, and cooking double batches of casseroles on nights I have time, to freeze the other one for another night. Dinner can be such a juggling act.

for dinner, we are loving homemade yum bowl:http://five-ten-fifteen.blogspot.com/2013/05/is-it-friday-yet.htmlwe are vegetarian, but you could add chicken very easily.

replace you can opener with one that leaves a safe edge:http://www.amazon.com/Kuhn-Rikon-Safety-Lifter-White/dp/B0002BQNR6i have the older model {from marshall's}. one plus {other than no stitches} is that you can use the cans as containers. the lids even pop back on for craft projects ♥

Everything looks so yummy, especially those meatballs! Dinner at our house is always a struggle, because I try to eat vegan and hubby thinks he cannot live without meat... but things like Indian or Thai curries or Algerian couscous are liked by all of us. Will try your Moroccan stew this weekend :-)

I think I've forgotten how to cook...sometime in spring, I get sick of winter vegetables, and then baseball season starts and then summer keeps on being busy and then it's school and soccer and it seems like we eat out/takeout at least three nights a week. Now I have to figure out what I used to cook. It's getting to be soup weather, which is good, because my kids will almost always eat soup of any kind, and because I like something I can throw together and then (in theory) relax a bit while it simmers.

Your dinners are always so yummy looking. Makes me want to give up trying to cook every night and just come over there :) I haven't made those stuffed peppers in so long, I really need to do them again. Sorry you cut yourself in the process, though :(

so is the chicken with cucumber sauce cold? I've never had it, but it looks really yummy. As does the last meal. I am currently loving all the GF food at trader joes, it is so nice to go to one store and up with a tasty meal rather than driving all over.

About Me

Thanks for visiting my blog. I'm wife to Ken, stepmom to Ben, and mom to Jacob and Faith, Dieter and Rainer. I like the domestic scene, salty/sweet combos, recipe reviews, the smell of rosemary, babies, the feeling of having exercised, hand clapping rhymes, books, Friday Night Lights, teacups, and laundry that has been washed, dried, folded and put away.
My Faerie MB blog explores what to wear when you are 40+. But everyone is welcome, of course!